Season Two of Mr. & Mrs. Smith Must Have Excellent Fashion

Season one showed the main characters living their best sartorial lives

Amazon Prime Video announced that the Donald Glover-led Mr & Mrs Smith series has been renewed for a second season at the brand’s first upfronts presentation.

Although the critically-acclaimed show will be returning, word is its co-stars, Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, will not be reprising their roles. Hopefully the incredible fashion fits, overseen by GQ’s former fashion director Madeline Weeks, doesn’t go MIA. The costume designer sat down with MACRO’s UpRising newsletter earlier this year to discuss her style philosophy for the two leads:

UpRising: Mr. & Mrs. Smith is your first television series—your background is in editorial. As a costume designer, was there any similarity to your print approach?

Madeline Weeks

: I came from magazines; I was fashion director at GQ for 20 years. Putting together shoots for GQ, I always thought narratively. I was working with a lot of actors—I realized there was a self-consciousness for actors who are so used to playing a role. So we’d always try to create a story so they didn’t feel like a model. I felt I could get everybody on board if I was like, “Somebody’s chasing you,” or whatever the idea was, depending on the fashion. So I’d storyboard that out with the photographer, then choose locations and vibes for the fashion.

With [Mr. & Mrs. Smith], I put together some mood boards; for Jane [Smith], it was Jane Birkin, Carolyn Bessette, young Jane Fonda. A mix of inspirations. My ideas [for John Smith] were ‘60s and ‘70s. A little retro: Robert Redford, Steve McQueen. Icon. Leading man. Smoldering guy that everybody is like, “Whoa, he looks amazing.” But subtle—you don’t want that to be distracting. When you see him in the kitchen cooking chicken soup, he’s wearing a Rick Owens tank top because those tank tops are sick. Everybody looks great in Rick Owens tank tops.

Every single thing [Donald Glover] wears—and pretty much everybody—is really considered. We would tailor and have fittings and talk about how things fit, how he ran in something, the colors. We wanted that element of luxury, things that could be coveted, but not scream fashion. Beautiful classics. His green leather jacket in that first episode is Celine, and the jeans he’s wearing are vintage Levis. We tailored them a little short, so you could see those cream socks. The heavy-soled shoe harkens back to [John’s] military background. The challenge was to be able to do all that and then spring into action. They had to be able to move and jump and run.

Despite the main characters not returning perhaps there will be a new couple who will take on the names of the former character and we’ll get to see a brand new tandem try to balance work and marriage, while maintaining incredible fashion sense.